"Everyone I know who was sure they could crack the Citadel wound up swinging from the hangman's tree."
"I can do this. Besides, there's no point planning to get inside before we know exactly where the book is."
"Don't worry about that," Vess mimicked. "I got it covered."
"You know where they keep it?"
"I know that like I know the color of Galand's underwear. But I got someone inside."
Raxa gave an impressed grunt. "How'd you pull that off? I thought the entire staff was a bunch of fanatics."
"Fanatics with families. Debts. Same troubles as everyone else. You running the Order, you got to get on that, Raxa. Cheaper to buy someone off than to get raided because you don't know what's coming."
She was quiet for a moment. Most likely, the reason the Order didn't already have a set of eyes and ears inside the Citadel was that Gaits had been working for them.
"I'll worry about that later," she said. "Find the book, and I'll make it ours."
~
While waiting to hear back from Vess, Raxa took a number of meetings with Anya, who could rattle off the name of everyone in the Order, along with what they'd earned over the last year. Raxa was glad to have her around. It was easy to tell yourself things would be so much better if only you were in charge. But when you took on the crown, you soon learned that you served it.
She didn't think it would be the world's best idea to try to set up a contact in the Citadel at the same time they were conspiring to rob it, but she got Gurles to start laying the groundwork. Other than that, she had to deal with a ton of low-level shit regarding the truce between the Order and the Little Knives.
The part she hated most was coming up with compensation for her people who'd been permanently injured during the war for the streets. You had people who could have earned a fortune stealing jewels and art, but now they couldn't even climb a wall. You were going to console them with two hundred in silver and a job scrubbing dishes?
Everyone who signed up for an outfit like the Order knew damn well what they were getting into. Raxa's sympathy only extended so far. Even so, when she thought about what it'd feel like to be in their shoes—the long years of quiet boredom; fading memories of jumping from rooftop to rooftop; forcing out a smile when some kid came in flushed, sweaty, and hilarious from a successful theft—she knew she'd have to walk away. Find a different life. And try to forget.
As she paid them their due, Anya scribbling amounts in her ledger, Raxa envisioned herself calling down the shadows like the priests did. And using them to make her people whole.
It was three days before a young boy dropped by her tenement with word from Vess. That night, Raxa hoofed it over to the temple of Urt. Its warped exterior made her head hurt. Vess was waiting in the courtyard, sitting on the branch of a tree.
It was a humid night and Raxa wiped sweat from her forehead. "Why do we always have to meet in your temple? Do you know how far I have to walk?"
"Didn't know I was invited. Would love to come by and drink whatever you got."
"Speaking of gots, how's the book coming?"
Vess chuckled. "You don't have any love for talk, do you? Every time, it's straight to it. Wonder if the men you're with love that or hate it."
"I haven't had any complaints."
"There is a chapel. Four floors."
"Let me guess," Raxa said. "It's on the top."
"It's on top. And always guarded."
"Inside the chamber? Or at its door?"
"The door. It's in a case. Glass. You know how to cut glass without making it scream?"
"That won't be a problem."
"How will you get in?"
"Ah ah. We haven't worked together nearly long enough for me to tell you that."
Vess smirked. "Can't blame me for trying."
Raxa returned to her offices and pored over maps of the Citadel. She'd have to move fast to get to the chapel and back before she ran out of juice. But it looked doable. The next night, she headed for the hill on the north end of the city where Galand had built the carneterium, the institution of monks who liked to paw through corpses and figure out how they'd died—and, sometimes, who'd killed them.
She slipped into the shadows, the intoxicating world of silver and black, like what it must feel like to live on a star. She walked briskly past the old man sitting inside the cave entrance and hooked down a hallway, reverting back to the real world to save her strength. She reached the side tunnel leading toward the Citadel dungeons. Moving in utter darkness, she shuffled forward until her fingers touched brick.
The last time she'd been through here, she'd used her almighty bone sword to chop her way through the back of a cell. They'd patched it up in a hurry. Not a problem: in the shadows, walking through rock was like walking through an open door.
She moved back into the starry world, stepped through the bricks, and bounced right off a wooden wall.
She flickered back to reality, swearing as she rubbed her forehead. What was going on? Had they slapped up some boards as a temporary cover for the hole, then come in from the other side and walled it over with brick? Strange way to do things. Very strange.
Raxa reentered the shadows. She moved up to the wood, placing her palm against it, then moved to her right; once it ended, she could simply step through the rock and into another cell.
Three steps later, the boards were still going. The coverage was much wider than the door-shaped space she'd sliced open on her way out. Even so, it wasn't until she'd gone another twenty feet and still hadn't found a gap in the wood that she understood something might be seriously wrong.
She retreated to the bricks that marked the original hole and tried walking to the left instead. Same story. Exploring further, she discovered they'd walled up the entire dungeon with wood.
Raxa returned to the tunnel and the normal world. A slow heat moved around her scalp. Wasn't any reason to coat a stone dungeon with wood panels. Check that: there was no mundane reason. But she could think of one pretty crazy reason.
To stop people like her from getting in.
Gaits had told Cee about her little trick. Cee had since taken steps to stop her from getting back in. Raxa did have a sword that seemed capable of chopping through anything, up to and including walls, anvils, and mountains, but there was no way she could whack her way through a brick wall and then a wooden one without drawing the entire castle down on her.
She cocked her head. If Cee knew who she was, and what she could do, then why hadn't she been arrested yet? She'd been careful for the last few days, but not that careful. There hadn't been any word on the street or from Vess' inside man that the Citadel was out looking for her.
They didn't really know, did they? In the gloom of the dungeon, Cee hadn't gotten any kind of real look at her. Cee had her name—her first name, anyway—but who else really knew who Raxa was? The others in the Order? The orphans and the families she'd placed them with? The Citadel hadn't come after her because they didn't know who to arrest.
Something stirred in the fun part of her brain. She turned around and jogged back out the way she'd come in.
~
"Back fast."
"There was a setback getting in," Raxa said. "But I've got another idea."
Vess made a flicking gesture with her fingertips. "Let me guess. I don't get to know it."
"Sorry. A few days ago, we were still trying to kill each other."
"You couldn't get in like you thought. The new idea works, you still sure you can get out?"
"If I can get in, I can get out."
Vess shook her head. "Getting out is always harder than getting in. You got another idea, that's good. Means you still got a few beans between your ears. But if you don't let me come up with a backup exit, I think those beans gone rotten."
"Where do you come up with this stuff?" Raxa said, laughing. "Fine. You got an idea for me? Or do I have to wait for it?"
Vess laid out her idea. Risky, but better than nothing. She thought she'd ne
ed two days to prepare.
Back at home base, Raxa woke early and tracked down Anya, who was the annoying kind of person who popped out of bed the instant the sun began to turn the skies pink.
"I'm looking for Lark," Raxa said. "The new fence. Need to move a few pieces."
Anya put on a stern look. "Gaits only hired him a few weeks ago. Gaits was compromised. Lark could be compromised as well."
"That's exactly why I need to test him."
"An alternate choice would be to assume he is tainted and cut him loose. We have other fences."
"Gaits was connected to everybody. If we cut loose everyone he knew, we'll have to start over from scratch. We just have to be careful, that's all."
Anya's expression made it clear what she thought of this idea, but she wasn't the type to buck an order. She gave Raxa Lark's address. Raxa rattled off a note to the effect that she was a collector of jewelry and was looking to sell off a few select items, describing them just well enough for an experienced hand to identify them as coming from the Jerrelec Collection, which she'd nabbed from the Citadel earlier that summer.
She handed the note to Skipper, one of their runners. Skipper jogged off into the city. The girl was back before noon. Lark was interested in the pieces—so interested he'd included an offer. Written in code, of course, but it was a good price. Better than Raxa had been expecting. He said he'd need a couple days to get the funds together.
Raxa sent Skipper back to give him the okay. Lark waited until the next day to send back a time and place for the meet. The night after that, Raxa headed to the place, the back room of a pub inside the Ingate. Not the most imaginative location for a meet, but at least it was a nice location.
As per instructions, she'd worn a green scarf. As she stood in the warm, smoky pub, a tall, slender man approached, dressed in black.
"You're Kala?" he said, giving the name she'd attached to the letter. She nodded. He smiled thinly. "Alone?"
"You think I got a regiment hiding in my blouse?"
His cheek twitched. "This way."
He led her through a cramped hallway and into a windowless room. Boots rumbled behind her. Two Citadel goons in black and silver, swords drawn.
"Hands on your head, scum." One of them stuck the point of his blade against her chest. "Any blades on you?"
She did. Along with two bracelets and a necklace from the Jerrelec. They tied her hands, loaded her onto a wagon, and rolled her straight through the Citadel gates. They marched her through the courtyard and down a staircase. The dungeons smelled like piss and mildew. They flung her in a cell. Before the door closed, locking her in darkness, she saw the cell walls that fronted the hallway were blank stone.
The cell reeked, and they'd roughed her up a little, but she didn't care. Lark had swallowed the bait like a starving cod. Offered too much, and then, despite being that eager to buy, his arrangements had been slow—almost as if he'd had to make arrangements with somebody else first.
She listened to the guards' footsteps fade down the hall. If they took the Jerrelec pieces straight to Cee, who seemed to be head of Citadel's security, the woman seemed smart enough to check in on the culprit for herself. Raxa had two things working in her favor: first, she hadn't told Lark anything that could identify her. And second, the Citadel was a great big gods damn bureaucracy.
Even so, no sense wasting time.
She walked into the shadows and through the wall. Hallway was clear. She moved back to the dullness of the actual world, sticking tight to the wall as she headed toward the stairs. She ascended. At the top, she moved back into the nether.
From the perspective of the gates, the dungeons were on the left side of the keep. The chapel was all the way on the opposite side. On the outer walls, the guards stood out as silver silhouettes, streamers of shimmering mist following them as they moved. Raxa took off at a trot, cutting straight across the courtyard.
If the Cathedral of Ivars weren't looming across the street like a sentinel of the gods, the word "chapel" would have come across as an eye-rolling piece of false modesty. The building that housed the Cycle would have been a cathedral in any other city. Its two spires poked over a hundred feet into the night. Its face was dark granite, swarming with gargoyles, demons, miniature dragons, all that churchly crap they used to humble you. A lantern hung out front, presumably in case anyone couldn't wait until morning to prostrate themselves and beg forgiveness for their latest failure.
For just a moment, Raxa paused, head cocked at the splendid building. By definition, the rich were those who had lots of money. Which made them the best targets. The rich also almost always lived in stone houses. Where her talent was most useful. Was this a sign from Carvahal, the Silver Thief himself? A divine calling? If so, she'd better not ever reject her gift. To do so would risk invoking holy wrath.
She strode through the outer wall, blundering into a tapestry on the other side; the fabric barely rustled, as if she were no more significant than a breeze. The main hall was deserted. She dashed across it, locating a stairwell.
The fourth floor landing opened to an airy foyer with windows overlooking the grounds. The foyer doors were flanked by two grim-looking guards bearing wicked polearms. Within the shadows, nether danced on the blades. They'd tasted blood.
Couple of toughies. But if they wanted to keep their treasures safe, they should have sent a priest.
Raxa skipped through the wall. After ensuring the room beyond was vacant, she relaxed back into reality, letting her eyes adjust from the dazzling glow of the nether. The room had a high, arched ceiling, matched by high arched windows. Desks and shelves held a plethora of objects that looked worthy of her pockets.
But there was no time to indulge in the pleasure of pawing through somebody else's collection. At the back of the room, a glass case stood on a low dais.
The thick rugs swallowed up the sound of her footsteps. The glass was finely crafted—few bubbles, almost completely transparent. Within it, an oversized black book bore the unmistakable White Tree of Barden.
She prodded the glass. It was embedded in the dais, a hinged flap providing access to the interior, but that was locked with a solid loop of iron. Raxa didn't see a keyhole in the lock. Damn priests probably didn't need keys.
Then again, neither did she.
She inhaled, drawing herself back into the world of bright and dark. The White Tree on the cover now extruded a dull light across the room. Raxa reached toward the glass. Years back, on discovering she could pass through it, she'd asked around, discovered glass was made from melted sand. Made sense she could pass through it, then.
But while walking through rock was no tougher than walking through mist, crossing through glass was more like wading through water. She pushed her fingers through, picked up the book, and withdrew it.
She snapped out of the nether. The book was heavy enough to brain someone with. Holding it in her hands, she expected lightning to shoot up her arms, or nether to spill out of her nose, but it seemed intent on doing nothing. Well, that was books for you.
She set it on top of the glass and opened the cover. The smell of old parchment and leather wafted loose. The first few pages were blank, lightly yellowed, speckled with faint, gray-green spots. Then, in elegant script, written with the authority of one who ate kings and shat out priests, the book's title. And beneath that, in smaller letters from a different hand, the name of Dante Galand.
Raxa swore under her breath, chuckling. Just like a high priest to tattoo their own name on an irreplaceable relic that was created centuries before they were messing their diapers. She flipped through a few more pages, ensuring there weren't any demons coiled and waiting to spring from the text, then tucked the tome under her arm.
She hesitated. Maybe it was the book's weight. Maybe her instincts were just that good. Whatever the case, Raxa frowned, head lowered. She couldn't name half the Council priests, and didn't care a bucket of nightsoil about the ones she could, but everyone knew at least a little abou
t Galand, the Mallish boy who'd shown up out of the blue, helped to murder the existing head of the Council, and then roped Narashtovik into an insane war, only to—somehow, unbelievably—win it, and take over the Council for himself.
Ambitious. Ruthless enough, too. But he'd promised to rebuild Narashtovik—and these days, the Dead City was thriving. He'd said the war was going to free the norren—and he'd set them loose, challenging Gask itself in the process. He was a true believer.
And true believers weren't the type to deface the faith's most precious relics.
Keeping the book under her arm, she made a quick pass of the chamber. Dozens of other books, but nothing that looked any different from within the netherworld. Nothing else protected in a chest or a case, either. She moved back to the dais, searching it for hidden compartments, then fixed her eyes on the wall behind it. This was black rock, rough hewn. Except for a patch dead center in the wall, roughly six feet tall and three across, that was nearly as smooth as the glass case.
Raxa shifted into the shadows and walked through the wall. She popped into a closet-sized room on the other side. The silvery glare was so bright she had to shield her face, eyes watering. Nether boiled and churned like a fresh-forged blade quenched in water. The power in the chamber was so dense she could barely breathe.
A wooden end table stood before her, thigh-high. On the table rested a book. On the book, a white tree glowed so powerfully her eyes stung with tears.
As she reached for it, darkness flowed from her hand to its cover. Her arm went as cold as if she'd plunged it into a mountain stream.
The nether was being ripped out of her body. Another moment, and she'd be trapped in the doorless space for good.
7
Blays' swords seemed to leap into his hands. He drove them forward in an X. An arrow bound for Dante's chest scraped into the blades and glanced away.
"I've been shot!" Dante announced.
Blays ignored him, sprinting forward. Naran gave Dante a startled look, but despite his refined ways, the captain was a man of action used to command. He ran after Blays.
The Cycle of Galand Box Set Page 97
